Systems that allow for game pieces to physically move upon the surface of a game board without the assistance of a player so as to play against an A.I. opponent (or another player who doesn't physically move a game piece) are known. U.S. Pat. No. 4,398,720 A entitled “Robot computer chess game” and U.S. Pat. No. 7,780,513 B2 entitled “Board game system utilizing a robot arm” depict systems and accompanying methods for a player to play an A.I. opponent with chess game pieces being physically moved by the A.I. These prior arts make use of a robot arm electrically connected to the computing device and wherein when the board game program is executed, the computing device controls the robot arm to touch the game surface with the contact end to interactively play the board game with a user. There exist a number of drawbacks in using a robot arm to physically pickup game pieces:
firstly, from a purely aesthetic point of view, having a robot arm affixed on the periphery of the board is an awkward design;
secondly, restrictions on the robot arm only being able to manipulate only one game piece at a time as well as the mechanical components of the robot arm itself means that the opponent's moves will be slow and awkward relative to that of the player.
It is a major disadvantage of the prior art that an A.I. opponent cannot move multiple game pieces simultaneously.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,737,035 B2 entitled “Magnetically movable objects over a display of an electronic device” describes a method for an object to move relative to a restricted surface area. The method includes imparting motion to the magnetically movable object by adjusting a magnetic field applied to the magnetically movable object through the display of the electronic device. Unfortunately a major drawback to such a method is that only a single object can be physically moved along the surface. Furthermore, the orientation of the object cannot be determined. Thus, the applications for such a method are seriously limited.
CN102039045 A discloses an interactive surface embedded with an array of RF antennas capable of locating multiple objects embedded with RFID tags placed upon the surface. US 20110272884 A1 entitled “Transport of an object across a surface” describes a system whereby an object uses transport mechanisms to move along a surface. The combination of both prior art cited above would generate a system whereby multiple objects can move upon an interactive surface according to instructions from a computer system. However, such a system cannot accurately identify the orientation of each object relative to the interactive surface, nor can such a system direct the movement of the object along a defined path which can be sometimes a straight line and other times a bending movement along an arc. Thus, game piece movements that perform smooth turns and follows complex defined path cannot be performed using the prior art.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,245,760 B2 entitled “Robot for making an interface surface” describes a robot that can accurately change its position and orientation along a restricted surface area. U.S. Pat. No. 7,245,760 B2 utilizes a distributed control model and requires each moving object to have the ability to determine its location and movement parameters. The surface has imprinted coded data that identify a plurality of locations that the robot itself can recognize through the use of an image sensor. Although U.S. Pat. No. 7,245,760 B2 resolves some of the deficiencies identified in the above-mentioned prior arts, the electronics embedded within each robot are costly and the use of plurality of these robots in order to develop an interactive board game could prove to be uneconomical.